


you, at the dawn of your understanding

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Enemies to Lovers, Extra Treat, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 21:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12308076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: When the summons from the emperor arrives, Misaki doesn't want to heed it. But Ryo insists that the captain of the imperial guard be the one to undertake the task of delivering his empress to him, and what right does Misaki have to refuse? Besides, even if it would be too conspicuous to kill Nyx on the way back, she can always do it later. There's nothing to stop her—except herself.(AU from partway through 2.13: Nyx accepts Ryo's offer instead of rejecting it; Misaki's not happy about this, but to her own surprise, it doesn't stay that way.)





	you, at the dawn of your understanding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [commoncomitatus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/gifts).



> Your prompts for Misaki recognizing Nyx's potential and having her obsession over Nyx being "distracting" take a left turn, and Nyx finding herself more interested in Misaki than in Ryo, a) were totally amazing and b) sort of ran away with me, commoncomitatus! :D I hope very much that you enjoy this, and have had an awesome Femslashex. ♥
> 
> As noted, this is AU from partway through 2.13, but it (sort of) ties into the arc plot at the end of S3, or at least hints at it. Title adapted from Khalil Gibran, [Freedom XIV](http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/khalil_gibran/poems/2381.html).

 

 

When the summons from the emperor arrives, Misaki doesn't want to heed it.

It's the first time she can remember feeling such resentment, such reluctance. She had never enjoyed taking orders from Ishida Hiro, but it had been necessary. Besides, she couldn't have allowed Ishida Katsumi to detect any distaste in her expression or her manner; and the empress dowager had always, always been there at Ishida Hiro's shoulder.

So she hadn't indulged herself. She had cleared her mind, bowed low, and answered, placid as a still lake.

But now she looks at the messenger who has come from Ishida Ryo, at the top of his head as he bows to her, and she wants to kill him. To draw her blade and swing and watch his head topple to the floor and roll away; to pretend he never came at all, when Ryo tracks her down at last and asks, and claim ignorance.

Except doing so would be pointless. It won't save her. Not from this.

"I am the emperor's humble servant," she says instead, cool and flat and steady, and goes.

 

 

She bows right away, holds it longer than etiquette requires, so she doesn't have to look Ishida Ryo in the face when he claps his hands together and says, "Misaki, good. I have a very important task for you."

"Yes, Heika?" Misaki asks the gleaming floor.

And then he says it, the words she would have killed a man to keep from hearing: that his beloved Nyx has agreed to join him and be his empress, that Misaki must go to the appointed place at the appointed time and collect her from the _Raza_ , and bring her in glorious imperial state to the capital.

Misaki doesn't make herself listen to it all. His tone is more than enough. He sounds so _pleased_ , so satisfied; as if nothing could make him happier, as if there is no danger.

But there is danger. Of course there is. There's always danger, for the emperor.

"If I may, Heika," Misaki says when he's done, and she prevents her voice from going sharp only with great effort. "What about Eos 7? What about—"

"What _about_ Eos 7?" he snaps. "It will hardly be our only opportunity to act."

"And if this is intentional? If they convinced her to agree in the hope of distracting you—"

"Then they won't succeed," Ryo bites out, glaring at her, mouth twisting. "There's still a chance that I can make a deal with them. And even if they prove uncooperative, it won't matter. Not if I have Nyx."

Misaki feels her jaw go tense, and makes herself draw in a deep breath, let it out. "Heika," she says evenly.

But even that is too much. Ryo's lip curls, and he slashes a hand sharply through the air. "Enough! Enough, Misaki. I won't have her in my stepmother's ship; you will take my brother's personal vessel instead. You will go and get her and bring her safely to me, and you will treat her with every courtesy due to your future empress. Is that understood?"

 _Yes_ , Misaki wants to shout. _Yes, I understand. That we are at war, and you waste time, energy, thought, on this woman—that for all you know, she agreed because it will bring her close enough to let her kill you. What if she's angry that you killed her people? Didn't you see her face, in the throne room? What if she's manipulating you? You're letting yourself be distracted, Heika, you aren't thinking clearly; yes, I understand that, better than you do._

"Yes, Heika," she says instead, bowing low. He already knows perfectly well that she's displeased, so there's no reason to try to keep her expression from going cold, her mouth from tightening; but she goes no further than that.

He is the emperor.

Besides, she'll have plenty of time to solve this problem, on the way back to Zairon. She will command the ship and everyone on it, and Nyx will be alone.

And accidents do happen.

 

 

By the time she's approaching the _Raza_ 's position at last in the _Atakemaru_ , her heart has settled; her mind is clear. She let Ryo see her resentment. If Nyx dies in her custody, even by accident, Ryo will never trust her again.

She'll take Nyx safely back to Zairon. She must, in fact, because if Nyx dies too early, it will be profoundly inconvenient. And there is, after all, no reason to rush: once Nyx reaches the capital, there will be ten thousand blades waiting for her. Every noble family in all the Principality with a daughter they'd hoped to see as empress will be scheming to get rid of her, and what will she have to counter them? She'll be a stranger, a foreigner, gaijin. So she is a Seer—what of it? Calculating, dealing in abstracts. The rest of her people couldn't see Ryo's blades coming. Who's to say she'll be any more accurate?

Misaki might not even have to kill her, in the end, if someone else gets to her first. And if Misaki can manage an appropriate show of dedication to tracking down her murderer, Ryo may even be pleased with her—may even thank her. How wonderfully satisfying that would be.

When the _Raza_ leaps into place at last against a backdrop of stars, Misaki is calm, and even pleased. When she gives the order to open the _Atakemaru_ 's bay doors to admit the _Raza_ 's shuttle, she's smiling.

 

 

Nyx Harper steps off the _Marauder_ flanked by Two and Six—Portia, Misaki recalls, and Griffin, except Ryo never calls them that. As if they really aren't the same people they were before.

Odd, to think memory alone should change a person so much. Misaki sometimes feels unalterable, set on a track she can't swerve from, the bedrock of her nature sunk too deeply to be shaken; but what if she were wiped clean? What if her soul were blank and new? If Ishida Ryo were nothing to her but a name, a face, an emperor—if she could unlearn the addictive satisfaction of retribution—who would she be, then?

Not that it matters. She's herself, and Nyx Harper's standing in the _Atakemaru_ 's shuttle bay and looking at her with cold wary eyes.

"You sure you want to do this?" Six murmurs, at Nyx's shoulder. "Because you don't have to—"

"Yes," Nyx says firmly, without looking away from Misaki, "I do. I told you, it's important."

"Nyx," Two says.

And then Nyx does turn, touches Two's wrist and smiles at her just a little. "It's important," she says again, more quietly, and then looks at Misaki.

Misaki wants to spit in her face; to tell Six and Two that if they like Nyx so much they can keep her; to explain to her, using very small words, that whatever she thinks is important about this, she's wrong. Misaki will take her to Zairon and someone else will kill her, and Misaki's problems will be solved.

"This way," she says instead, coolly, and doesn't bow.

Nyx doesn't seem to notice the slight. She just looks at Misaki, inclines her head; touches the back of Two's hand, Six's, one more time, and then steps away from them and toward Misaki.

"All right," she murmurs, and Misaki turns and leads her out of the bay.

 

 

Nyx will have the quarters that were once Ishida Hiro's: lavish, silk and polished sandalwood, holoscreens set to give the appearance that these chambers look out from one of the upper levels of the palace in the capital.

It grates, a sharp persistent irritation, to have to bring Nyx here—Misaki lowers her eyes, the barest minimum gesture of deference, because she will not bow to Nyx Harper if she can help it. And even that brings a bitter taste rising to the back of her throat.

She'll die, Misaki reminds herself, watching Nyx step into the room and admire a dead man's things. She's not prepared for the capital, not prepared to be empress. The only Seer left alive, and yet whatever foresight she has, it can't possibly be enough. For all the rest of her people combined, it wasn't enough. What chance does she have?

She's a problem, a distraction, and the sooner she's gone, the better.

But not yet. Not yet.

"How long will it take us to reach Zairon?" Nyx asks.

 _Too long_. "Twelve days," Misaki bites out. "But don't worry," she adds, "I won't let anyone kill you but me," and then she turns on her heel and stalks out.

 

 

She can't avoid Nyx entirely. Ryo wants status updates, assurances of Nyx's safety, and even if Misaki didn't have to give them, she couldn't leave Nyx alone for long. Nyx will die—but not yet. Misaki needs her alive when they reach Zairon.

And there is no task that could be assigned to the _Atakemaru_ 's security officers that Misaki could not do better herself. If Misaki needs Nyx alive, however temporarily, then it is—bitterly, ironically, unkindly—Misaki's task to keep her that way.

She soothes the sting of this unfortunate truth with small cruelties, girlish pettiness. Refusing to address Nyx by any formal title, or indeed any title at all; repeated failure to keep her eyes respectfully lowered or avoid eye contact. When she speaks to Nyx, the words are polite but her tone lands only just to the near side of scornful.

And Nyx must realize it. At first, Misaki thinks she doesn't, and revels in this evidence of her stupidity. But there's something strange in the way Nyx's gaze always flicks to Misaki just before she begins to speak; in the way Nyx's mouth twists, quick, when Misaki's barely said a word, when the insulting implication of the rest of the sentence exists fully-formed only in Misaki's mind—

Seer, Misaki remembers. For a full day, this awareness only makes her more vicious. She knows how Seers work. She saw it for herself in the court of Ishida Hiro before Ryo had ever returned to Zairon. And there's something—something terrible, confining, almost claustrophobic, about the idea that Nyx has already taken Misaki's measure so well that her visions are achieving such accuracy, that Misaki is—

—is unalterable; set on a path she can't swerve from. She's thought it herself, felt it was so, but she had never considered it something she might be trapped by, something she couldn't escape.

Not until Nyx.

The day after that, she speaks to Nyx as little as possible, keeps her hand on the hilt of her blade and reminds herself of all the reasons she has not to draw it. She can't kill Nyx until they reach Zairon. She mustn't.

(And even if she did—

Even if she did, would she be changed by it? Would that set her free?

Or would Nyx see that coming, too?)

She comforts herself with all the ways it could be done, if she wished it. The security personnel in the corridor outside Nyx's rooms would leave, if Misaki ordered it; would fail to hear any cries coming from these quarters, if they were told to. Alone, without the networking machine or the drugs, Nyx shouldn't be able to see more than ten or fifteen seconds ahead. Poison, perhaps with slightly delayed action; or a paralytic, to grant the satisfaction of dealing the final blow by hand—

"You've been quiet today."

Misaki looks up. Nyx is watching her, in the steady even way she hates most—the way that says she's known and tagged and catalogued, that she has no secrets left.

"You usually have so much to say," Nyx adds flatly.

"Surely there's no need to tell you what you must know already," Misaki says, in a sweet warm tone she's chosen precisely because it must be completely at odds with the expression on her face.

Nyx leans back in her chair, taps her fork against her bowl—Misaki has taken great pleasure in having lavish traditional meals served to her, with a single gleaming set of foreign utensils thoughtfully provided. Metal, of course, to clash as obviously as possible against the polished wood and ceramic dishes Ishida Hiro had liked to eat from. _You don't belong here._

"That you hate me," she says at last, softly, without rancor. "That everyone will, probably. That for each thing I do know, there are ten thousand things I don't—that the only paths I can see coming are paths I understand."

She stops there, and Misaki waits for a long deliberate beat and then raises an eyebrow, affecting surprise. "That's all you think I'd have to tell you, if I let myself?"

Nyx looks at her, expressionless. "Oh, I'm sure you could elaborate—"

"But of course," Misaki murmurs. "My future empress need only ask!" She takes one precisely-measured step closer to Nyx, without looking away. "You are a threat and a failure and a distraction," and oh, she shouldn't be letting herself lose control; but Nyx is no Katsumi, and it's so beautifully satisfying to say what Ryo hadn't allowed Misaki to say, to enumerate the truths he refused to face. "Look at this—this ship. My emperor is in the middle of a war that has consumed Zairon for _years_ , and he sends me with two hundred soldiers, a heavy cruiser fit to transport an emperor and a full escort, to the middle of nowhere for _you_. You are no one, you are a criminal—you are not _fit_ —"

 _to be an empress_ , that's what she intends to say; but the words stick in her throat, split-second, like a lie. There's so much about Nyx that Misaki despises utterly, but—

But, in some ways, it's all too easy to imagine. Nyx is so tall. The way she stands, the way she holds her head, those clear dark eyes—the fall of her hair. She's already much too lovely. In imperial silk, paints and lacquers, hair bound and braided and strung with jade ornaments, she would look—

There are no words, Misaki thinks absently, for the way she would look.

"You are not fit for him," she says aloud instead.

She's expecting nothing. This is pure selfishness, the chance to say exactly what she wants to say to someone who can't stop her, who has no power to check her. Nyx has been cool, watchful, quiet, since she first boarded the _Atakemaru_ ; none of Misaki's other slights or attacks have troubled her visibly. Not one.

But this time, she looks away. She looks away and swallows, and her hand tenses around the handle of that shining fork.

"I know," she says.

"You know," Misaki repeats. The sharp petty joy of letting herself be cruel to Nyx has drained away, all at once; her attention's caught, seized. On the rare occasions she'd spared a thought for Nyx's motives, she'd assumed they couldn't be any more complicated than Ryo's. Nyx was infatuated, or wanted power and knew Ryo could give it to her, or both.

"I don't love him," Nyx says, and her tone is so calm and even that Misaki thinks she must have practiced. "I—might have loved Four," she adds, less steadily. "But Ryo is—I don't know him. And what I do know, I don't like."

Misaki thinks back to the throne room, to the look on Nyx's face. "It was Four who gave your brother that knife," she says.

Nyx's gaze snaps back to Misaki, eyes dark. "Yes," she says. "I didn't like that either. But I understood Four, even when I didn't like him. Ryo—" She stops and bites her lip. "I don't love him," she says again, more softly. "I don't think I can."

And yet she came here, Misaki thinks. Six and Two would have taken her back to the _Raza_ in a moment if she'd asked, if she'd so much as allowed herself to look reluctant. They'd never even have agreed to meet the _Atakemaru_ in the first place, if they'd thought Nyx didn't want to go. And what was it she'd said, when she'd arrived?

_I told you, it's important._

"You saw something."

It's only a guess, but for once Nyx doesn't look like it's something she was expecting to hear. For once, Misaki's surprised her.

"Shadow," Misaki elaborates. "You were on a smuggling ship full of criminals; it couldn't have been hard for you to get some. The Seers required it—Ishida Hiro secured all they could ask for and more, to allow them to do their work. And you're a Seer."

"I am," Nyx agrees slowly, and then she swallows and looks away again.

Ah—she hadn't put it together, perhaps. That Ryo would have whatever Shadow had been left, locked away somewhere; that Nyx would be not just an empress to him, but an advantage. The last Seer in the galaxy, living in his palace and carrying his heirs.

Four really must have been different from Ryo, Misaki thinks, if Nyx hadn't expected as much.

And Nyx is almost as woefully unprepared for the imperial court of Zairon as Misaki had thought, except—

Except for whatever it is that brought her here.

"Well?" Misaki says. "What was it? What did you see?"

And that brings Nyx's gaze back to her again. Satisfying, in a way, to be able to demand her attention.

Nyx narrows her eyes, and then tilts her chin up the barest fraction and says nothing.

Misaki should have known. She draws a slow breath and doesn't permit her frustration to show. "Keep your secret, if you like," she says. "I'll find out sooner or later."

Nyx laughs at that, short and sharp and incredulous. "Why?" she says, something that can't quite be called a smile lingering around her mouth. "Why? Why would I ever tell you _anything_?"

Misaki takes pity on her. "Because," she explains gently, "sooner or later, you'll realize the truth: you'll live longer with me on your side." She inclines her head just the barest degree, the ghost of the full bow she's never executed in Nyx's direction. " _Heika_ ," she adds, flat.

Nyx is staring at her, wary, eyes dark; Misaki realizes after a moment that she took another step toward Nyx without meaning to, that they are now closer together than they have been at any point since Nyx stepped off the _Marauder_.

She was right, she thinks, when she'd told Ryo that Nyx was a distraction. How could she be anything else? Here, now, close enough to touch, it's impossible to look away from her—the curve of her cheekbones; the shape of her eyes, her mouth.

Here, now, Misaki almost understands why Ryo would risk offending every noble family in the Principality for her.

"Are you finished?" she hears herself say, and it takes more effort than it should to step back. "I'll send someone to clear the dishes. Sleep well, Heika. I told you: I won't let anyone kill you but me," and then she drags her eyes away from Nyx Harper and makes herself stride briskly toward the door.

 

 

The stakes have changed.

Only a fool would fail to acknowledge it, and Misaki refuses to be a fool.

She can still allow someone to kill Nyx, she tells herself. Just—later. She'll let it take longer. Long enough for her to find out what it is, this thing Nyx saw in her visions, this thing important enough for Nyx to leave a ship full of people who care about her and marry an emperor she doesn't love.

It becomes an almost proprietary thought. The future may be in Nyx's hands, but Nyx is in Misaki's. Misaki will decide when it is time for her to die; but until then, no one will touch her. Not until Misaki knows her secret.

Which can't happen if they never talk to each other.

So Misaki stops avoiding Nyx. She's still in command of the _Atakemaru_ ; she can't spend every moment standing at Nyx's shoulder, waiting for her to let something slip. But she stops avoiding Nyx. She makes sure she's there when Nyx takes her meals—times when it's reasonable to stand in attendance, to offer conversation. Surely Nyx will never _trust_ her. But if she can establish herself as someone Nyx may talk to, may share certain objective political concerns with, that might be enough.

That's certainly all she's expecting.

If it begins to take on a sense of routine—if tasting Nyx's food before she eats it turns into Misaki herself dining at the same time, in Nyx's quarters—if the slights and insults they trade become a little less scathing and a little more amusing—

It hardly matters. It doesn't change anything.

 

 

Nyx knows almost nothing about Zairon except what Ryo—Four—told her. And Four was working off research, database entries, secondhand information. When he was Ryo instead, Nyx wasn't talking to him about Zairon if she could help it. Nyx wasn't talking to him about much of anything.

So Misaki teaches her the names of Zairon's noble houses, outlines the simplest and most fundamental level of the web of marriages and vows and obligations that connects them, describes how the empress will be expected to respond to most of the ministers and officials ushered into her presence.

She had almost hoped Nyx would be overwhelmed by it all, would stumble and struggle and ask stupid questions Misaki could have set aside to scoff at later. But instead Nyx absorbs it all easily, without faltering, and can extrapolate from basic starting conditions all the way out to consequences Misaki wouldn't have expected her to grasp.

Then again, if anyone knows how to remember, organize, and integrate data to form conclusions, it's a Seer. After a day or two, Misaki's more surprised when Nyx says something that betrays her rapidly decreasing ignorance. Gaijin, still; but at least she's clever.

And then, one evening, Nyx asks her about clothing.

Misaki glances down at her bowl and then sets her chopsticks aside. She's almost finished anyway. And for this, it'll be better to show than tell.

She stands and walks to Nyx's end of the table. She's begun choosing robes for herself that are a little—softer than she might otherwise have worn; fewer of the high sharp-cornered collars, silks in cobalt and burgundy instead of black. Nothing dramatic, only enough to give Nyx's subconscious a reason to consider her something other than the shadow of death approaching. Strategic.

Strategic. The way Nyx looks up at her, the way Nyx's eyes follow the hand she smooths along the outer robe's neckline, the prickle of distant heat Misaki feels along her spine—secondary.

But Misaki can't quite call them irrelevant.

"Robes," she says aloud. "The empress's are more complicated—more layers, more embroidery, a gown and skirt underneath. But you won't need to know how to fasten them. You'll have more servants than you know what to do with, Heika."

Misaki gives the title the usual scornful twist; but the corner of Nyx's mouth quirks up anyway. "I'm sure you're right," she murmurs, and she gazes up at Misaki a moment longer before lowering her eyes demurely and standing herself, chopsticks settling on her tray with a soft clack. "But I'd like to understand. Show me."

And Misaki feels almost like a Seer herself, in this moment: she somehow knows exactly how long it is she'll have to wait before Nyx's eyes flick to her face again, how steadily that stare will hold as she reaches for the broad belt at her waist.

The empress will have a formal obi, with stiffeners and ribbons and a dozen hands to tie the knot; but the captain of the guard doesn't dress that way, not even on formal occasions. Still, Misaki's belts and robes are designed with traditional aesthetics in mind. They won't feel entirely dissimilar, and will give Nyx some idea what to expect.

This is what Misaki's thinking, as she unbuckles the belt, sets it on the table, and eases the outermost of her robes off her shoulders. And then she steps around Nyx, moves into place at her shoulder, and all thoughts fly out of her head. It's wordless poetry, a musical and finely-metered tanka, to guide her robe up the slope of Nyx's lowered arms, to lift a hand and sweep the glorious fall of Nyx's hair aside to settle the collar in place. The belt is a perfect excuse to lean closer—to, for a moment that's both too long and too short, trap Nyx within the half-circle of one arm—

"There," she hears herself say, working the last of the clasps of the belt together at the back of Nyx's waist; and then she backs away a single careful step.

The fit is, of course, imperfect. Nyx is taller, a little broader, more generously shaped than Misaki. But that only makes a breathless hot possessiveness well up deep in Misaki's heart: to see her own robe wrapped around Nyx, belted close, Nyx's palm settled flat across the width of the belt.

(If she touched it that way while Misaki wore it—what would that feel like?

Why does Misaki want to know?)

Nyx runs admiring fingers along the silk sleeve; but she's not watching herself do it. She's looking at Misaki, bold and dark-eyed, as if waiting to see what Misaki will do.

As if she doesn't know already, Misaki thinks, and the idea sparks through her with something that isn't quite anger. It's only that it stings somehow, to think that Nyx saw this coming—that she's sitting back watching Misaki follow the steps of a dance set to music she's already memorized. It makes Misaki want to _act_ , to break free, to do something sudden and unexpected—

She doesn't stop to consider the decision. She only lowers her head, and then in a single motion kicks out hard toward Nyx's knee.

She has a split second to notice the way Nyx's eyes sharpen, and before the kick can fail to land, she's already aiming another blow—this time with the hand. And for the next sixteen seconds, there's nothing else: only the strike, the counterstrike, the blows and the blocks.

It should be frustrating, to have her every movement neatly met in perfect time. It should make her hateful; and perhaps there was a part of her that had hoped it would. But instead—

Instead it pleases her. It's exhilarating, beautiful. There's a part of Misaki that's—that's always in the midst of dealing a blow, always trying to. And to let herself do it and be countered, where there will be no political consequence, where there's no need for the endless calculation that dogs the every step of the captain of the imperial guard, where a draw won't be the same thing as defeat: it pleases her. It soothes her, somewhere she had thought she was past soothing.

They end up grappling on the floor, thighs locked tight, Nyx with a hold that Misaki can't break one-armed and Misaki with her free hand at Nyx's neck. For a moment, Misaki thinks about grabbing Nyx's hair—digging her fingers in, dragging Nyx's head back to expose the curve of her throat, pressing down into her and making her—making her—

Nyx's gaze snaps to Misaki's face, and her lips part the barest fraction, her eyes wide and intent.

(Did she see it? Had it, for even a moment, been possible? Could Misaki have—)

Misaki sacrifices her grip to give herself the use of both arms, breaks Nyx's hold and releases and rolls up and away. She comes to her feet and centers herself in the same motion, draws a slow breath, as though her heart isn't pounding.

"Goodnight," she says. And then, as has become her habit, "Sleep well, Heika; I won't let anyone kill you but me," and then she stalks to the doors and they slide open for her.

Her remaining robes feel too light, in the corridor; her skin prickles under the flow of the _Atakemaru_ 's recirculated air.

She hadn't wanted to be here. But now she is, unaccountably, glad that Ryo hadn't sent another to undertake this task.

 

 

They reach Zairon on the twelfth day, just as Misaki had told Nyx they would.

Ship's morning is taken up with preparations. Misaki hadn't lied: the empress's manner of dress, especially on an official occasion such as this, is much more complex than that of the captain of the guard. And an empress-to-be must fill the same space, generate the same sense of presence—must make everyone who looks at her _think_ of empresses, while not quite presuming to make the position her own just yet.

A tall order. But Ryo had known as much, and the garments he had sent for Nyx aboard the _Atakemaru_ were chosen with this truth in mind.

And Misaki hadn't lied about the attendants either. All Nyx has to do is hold still, and she's surrounded; bedecked, a layer at a time, like a wisteria branch slowly flowering. And Misaki—

Misaki watches. Nyx stands like a statue, would be even more comparable to one if her eyes didn't keep catching Misaki's in the half-circle of mirrors that surrounds her; Misaki follows the servants' hands with her gaze as they flutter along Nyx's shoulders, waist, hips, returning now and again to Nyx's face, and every time Nyx is looking back at her, steady and bright-eyed.

There's a gap before the final outer robe, the enormous obi, will be tied. The ship will land first; only when any risk of turbulence is past will the final steps be completed, with as little time as possible between that moment and the moment Nyx steps into Ishida Ryo's presence. As little opportunity as possible for error or disarray to be introduced.

Misaki waits until Nyx's hair is finished, the braids completed, everything wound and bound and pinned, ornaments with their strings of clicking beads eased into place. And then the servants step away to make sure the final pieces are laid out and prepared, and leave Misaki and Nyx as close to alone as they're likely to get for several hours.

Misaki holds up the pair of hairpins in her hand, and watches Nyx raise an eyebrow in the mirror.

"Not that I doubt your generosity," she murmurs, "but don't I already have enough of those?"

"Not like these," Misaki says shortly, and demonstrates: grips the black-and-gold lacquered length of the hairpin in one hand, the delicately carved lotus bud in the other, and pulls. The narrow blade sings, a brief bright tone, as it comes free. Misaki presses it lightly against her fingertip, and then turns her hand to the mirror to show Nyx the bloom of blood.

"Not like those," Nyx agrees, and bows her head with the stately sort of grace necessitated by the weight of her dressed hair. Misaki finds a pair of angles that won't draw attention; and if Nyx realizes that the hand Misaki settles against the nape of her neck isn't strictly required to slide each of the hairpins into place, she doesn't say so.

When they're both positioned securely, Misaki lets go and steps away. "I must go to the command deck now," she says, because if they haven't begun their descent toward Zairon, they surely will soon.

She's already begun to turn toward the door when Nyx says, "But—you'll be there?"

Misaki looks back over her shoulder. Nyx is standing there like—like exactly what she is: a half-formed and unarmored queen, burdened but straight-backed, chin high, eyes clear; and she's asking Misaki for something Misaki isn't sure she understands.

And yet Misaki opens her mouth and finds only one answer waiting on her tongue. "Yes, Heika," she says, and she doesn't even sneer when she says it. "I'll be there with you."

 

 

After all, it's true. Misaki must stay on the command deck until the _Atakemaru_ has descended safely; and then she must go put on the formal ceremonial captain's armor. But once that's done, she can return to the corridor outside Nyx's quarters.

It's her official duty to be part of the new empress's official escort. So she doesn't have to think about whether she might have done it anyway.

From there, it's almost all pageantry. Nyx disembarks from the _Atakemaru_ in a palanquin—never let it be said that Ishida Ryo doesn't see the value in traditional imagery. It's not far from the imperial docking structure to the palace, and the crowds along their route have surely been carefully screened and selected. But it'll still make a good holoimage to distribute. Might even distract people from the bad news coming from the warfront for a few days. Ryo will be pleased.

He certainly looks pleased, when they reach him. He's waiting in the palace courtyard, on a dais constructed specifically for this day—a single throne, because Nyx isn't the empress yet.

And, Misaki thinks, there's something in Ryo that _is_ pleased, to have Nyx present herself to the emperor in this way: like a petitioner, a minister, someone who's been summoned to attend him. He'll be pleased to place her in a throne beside him, too, but always with the memory of this day to remind them both that his came first—that her throne is a gift bestowed upon her by him, never wholly her own.

But then her Seer's mind, her knowledge, will be the same way: none of it truly his, except what she chooses to tell him. Strange, to look up at Ryo on his throne and think he's not holding the high ground, but rather scrabbling for even footing.

Nyx among the handmaidens assigned to her is like an azalea among pear blossoms; they're dressed in pale shades, creams and pinks and the barest peach, and she has been put in brilliant red, heavily embroidered. All that's required of her are rote ceremonial lines she memorized on the trip, and not many of them. She's here to be looked at, not heard—and Misaki, watching her, doesn't think she minds. The way she had talked about Ryo, she must be glad not to have to decide what to say to him, to have her every word planned out for her in advance.

And then, at last, Ryo finishes formally welcoming her to his court; she accepts and graciously thanks him for his generosity; and it's done. Misaki remains part of her escort when she departs the courtyard for the inner palace. Ceremony doesn't require her to accompany Nyx all the way to the suite of rooms assigned to her until her marriage to Ishida Ryo, but—

But she wants Nyx alive, and she doesn't trust the palace security to do that any more than she trusted the crew of the _Atakemaru_. Not because she suspects them of anything in particular; simply because they have no personal stake in the matter, and self-interest is the only motive Misaki's ever found consistently trustworthy. And if she has discovered herself harboring secondary motives, well.

She's always been willing to indulge herself. As long as indulgence aligns with her goals, as long as there's something to be gained by it; as long as she doesn't lose sight of her objectives.

So it's acceptable, to step into the rooms that are now Nyx's and feel something like anticipation, pleasure, brighten in her chest.

Misaki checks the whole suite carefully, systematically, for any sign of unauthorized entry or interference. By the time she returns to the main room, the obi and the vast scarlet over-robe are being carefully folded, hustled away; Nyx is left standing alone in the outermost of her paler under-robes, poised and still, eyes lowered.

She looks tired, Misaki thinks.

She doesn't seem to see it coming, when Misaki steps up behind her and lays a hand on her shoulder; Misaki can feel her tense for an instant in startlement.

"Don't worry, Heika," Misaki says, and reaches to draw the first of three carefully-positioned white jade combs free of Nyx's hair. "Remember: I won't let anyone kill you but me."

Nyx snorts, un-empress-like; but underneath Misaki's hand, the line of her shoulders eases.

 

 

Misaki's prepared for an attack from any number of quarters. Even if the noble families stay their hands, wanting to see whether they can earn themselves this empress's favor before they settle for eliminating her, there are all kinds of other dangers. Ryo's old enemies, from his time as crown prince—and new ones, who were positioned advantageously during Ishida Hiro's reign and resent his loss. Misaki's enemies, even, who must be aware that Ryo made her responsible for Nyx's safe delivery, that if Nyx dies soon enough after her arrival it will reflect poorly on Misaki.

But when the first attempt is made on Nyx's life, it comes from another direction entirely.

Nyx asks Misaki for more data; if she's going to be of any use to Ryo, she needs to know as much as she can.

"And are you interested in being of use to the emperor?" Misaki prods.

Nyx gives her the warm noncommittal empress's smile she's been practicing, and says coolly, "That depends on what I see."

"You're getting better at this, Heika," Misaki murmurs, and loads her personal collection of starmaps, fleet movements traced in red, onto the holoprojector in the table.

She's taking Nyx through a brief overview of the war's progression—Nyx was with the Seers long enough to be fed its beginning, its early years, but her data is now months out of date. Misaki's leaning in to point out the glowing golden lights of the Temiken system, its increasingly vulnerable position, Pyr's likely course of advancement, and then—

Then something happens, too quickly for her to be able to tell what. All she knows is that there's a sound, tearing and splintering; a grip settling onto her arm; the flash of a blade—she twists and kicks out, reflexive, but the grip doesn't break. She swings an arm up so the blade bites into her forearm instead of her throat, and pushes at the floor, the legs of the table, so her chair will topple over. Anything to increase the distance between her and the opponent who's appeared out of nowhere—

A blow, jarring, and the grip breaks. Misaki tumbles to the floor, turns the fall into a roll and comes up again on her feet, with a quick twist of her wounded arm to test its range of motion. A blaze of pain, if she turns her forearm too far in either direction; but all her fingers still work and the movement of her wrist isn't impaired. Not bad, considering.

She has the space of a breath to look: to see the figure, a man whose face is unfamiliar; the hole he left, straight through the paper and wood that formed the inner wall of this room; and Nyx, halfway through delivering a sharp kick to his solar plexus. Landing a blow like that, Misaki's next move would be to press the advantage—expecting the man to fold at the impact, and wanting to strike at the head or neck.

But Nyx doesn't do that. She's already darting away instead, lunging to the side, and she's only just fast enough to avoid the man's hand as he grabs after her. He didn't fold.

Nyx knocks his arm away, meets his next blow without hesitating, kicks again; and then, with the moment's breathing room she's bought herself by it, she looks for Misaki and says quickly, "Synthetic."

She doesn't have time for anything else—the man is already coming at her again, snake-quick and expressionless.

But that's enough. Ryo told Misaki about Two. Misaki's sword is already in her hand. She slashes out, a flicker of steel. Not a real attack, just a test: just enough to catch the man's cheek, turned half-away as he focuses on Nyx, with the tip of the blade.

The cut opens, ripples—closes.

Synthetic.

Nyx is holding him, barely. She must have fought Two sometimes, Misaki thinks; she knows just enough to stay a few seconds ahead, to see his likeliest moves before he can make them. Sooner or later, though, probability will betray her. She'll slip, just a little. Just enough for him to take her out.

If she were alone—but she's not.

The man still has his knife; two knives, in fact. He couldn't have made it this far into the palace with a gun of any kind—but the imperial guard uses blades. And he's good with them. Misaki comes at him with all the force of a lifetime's training, all the cold clear violence that fills her heart, and can hardly do more than nick him, small swift slices that heal almost as soon as she leaves them.

But she moves as she does it, every step a little further away from Nyx; and the more he has to split his attention between them, one to either side of him, the harder it gets for even his synthetic skill to keep up with them.

And then, at last, Nyx finds an opening—sees one coming, and is ready for it.

Maybe she's even a little too ready. The synthetic strikes out toward her and she's already ducking in; his blade opens up a neat red line along her cheekbone. But then she's inside the arc of his arm, and she has time for one sharp blow, a second, just as Misaki jabs out at his knee.

He wavers, falls—and Misaki can see him tensing, redirecting his weight, already preparing to tuck his feet under himself and leap back up, except then Nyx comes down hard on his arm. Not enough to break it; but enough to hold him, for the critical moment it takes Misaki to swing.

She keeps her swords sharp. There's almost no resistance, until she hits the wood of the floor.

And even a synthetic can't heal that.

She stops for a moment to breathe, to blink the sweat from her eyes—they can't have been fighting for more than a few minutes, and yet the furious rush of it has felt like forever.

And then a hand curls around her arm, and she looks up.

"—away," Nyx is saying, "get away from him, now," and she tugs Misaki back a second before something strange and viscous spills out of what's left of the synthetic, black and smooth and lightless, pooling ink.

"What—"

"Don't touch it," Nyx says, hushed, staring at it.

"Heika," Misaki begins, and then stops short, in the grip of sudden understanding. "This," she says slowly. "This is what you saw."

Nyx looks at her and then away. "Part of it," she says. "We—the Seers, we had information. Corporate insiders, leaks; they wanted to know what the competition was up to. I didn't understand what it meant, none of us did. But then we went to Dwarf Star, and Three—" She glances at Misaki and then shakes her head. "It's a long story. But this is part of it: these things, where they come from. I don't have very much data. But I had enough to see—something bad. Something I couldn't let happen, if I could help it.

"I need Ryo. I need _Zairon_. I need you not to throw away your fleet. Pyr, the corporations, it's all—it's all a distraction. We have to stop fighting each other, or we're not going to be ready to fight them."

And this is what Misaki's been waiting for, this secret Nyx knows that no one else does, this glimpse into the future. She should bow, excuse herself, begin the process of cleaning up the body; leave Nyx here alone, and decide how to use this and against whom, which side she wants to be on.

But she doesn't do it.

Nyx's cheek is still bleeding where the synthetic cut it. Misaki reaches up, and watches herself rub a thumb along the line of it. "We'll be ready."

"You don't know that—"

"They do," Misaki says. "If there weren't a chance you'd succeed, they wouldn't have sent him to kill you."

Nyx blinks.

"And now I will destroy them, Heika," Misaki murmurs sweetly, "because I won't let anyone kill you but me."

Nyx's face softens at that, as though she's hearing some other set of words entirely. And she must surely see it coming, when Misaki weaves a hand into her hair and pulls her down; but if she does, she lets it happen. She lets Misaki drag her in and bite her mouth, lets her eyes fall shut, and Misaki draws her closer still and thinks about how irritatingly difficult it will be to surprise her.

But then she supposes she has plenty of time to figure out how it could be done.

 

 


End file.
